When a mailpiece is sent by a sender to a recipient, it is useful to track the mailpiece to find out how the mailpiece is delivered, what route it takes and where and at what time the mailpiece is processed during transit. It is possible to use a radio frequency identification device (RFID) as a tag to be attached to a mailpiece to gather information en route. The RFID tag has a plurality of memory locations to allow the sender and some or all of the mailpiece handlers to write messages in the tag. For this application, one must ensure that data can be written as needed, and that the data written onto the tag remains indefinitely, if so desired. While tags that provide read/write data capability can be used to write data as needed, the data written onto the tag is not protected. That is, the data written onto the tag may be overwritten. One solution to this problem is to protect the written data by password such that only the person who has the password can overwrite the memory content. However, tags that are password-protected require the password to be disseminated to all possible writers—something that may be difficult to achieve.
Tags that can be written once or that have a locking capability such that data can be written as needed and that the data written onto them can remain indefinitely do exist. However, they cannot be reused.
Additionally, there may be a desire to protect the information from general read access, especially if the tag traverses competitive organizations, which the current tags do not address.
It is thus desirable and advantageous to provide a reusable memory device onto which data can be written as needed, and the written data can remain as long as desired.